


Sonnets d'Apollon et Hyacinthe

by regularvoltaire



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Canon Universe, Cynicism, French Revolution, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Idealism, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Poetry, Shakespearean Sonnets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-28 17:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regularvoltaire/pseuds/regularvoltaire
Summary: For they were many names through the ages; Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Alexander and Hephaistion, one always leaving the other first towards the peril of mortality. But perhaps most of all they were this: Apollo and Hyacinth— the god and the mortal, the most tragic of them all.





	Sonnets d'Apollon et Hyacinthe

**Author's Note:**

> I shall bear the full burden and responsibility of my faulty and imperfect usage of Shakespearean sonnets. I have been in love with them since forever, and cannot help but notice the striking resemblance between Hugo's two sons of revolutionaries and Shakespeare's two seemingly different personalities in writing his sonnets. However, I will grant them with their opposites, so as Hugo said that opposites attract, so does Grantaire and Enjolras- the Orestes and Pylades; for the cynic Grantaire I chose the celebrated sonnet 18, Shakespeare's perfect idealism of love to his "fair youth", for the idealist Enjolras- sonnet 130, Shakespeare's cynical mockery of love for his "dark lady". For they are each a true cynic and idealist in ideas and revolutions, but I'd like to think that only in each other will they find these exceptions.  
> Enjoy!

_Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?_  
_Thou art more lovely and more temperate:_

Grantaire is a man that does not believe in anything safe the notion that he knows his being and what he chose to be.

Some say that the statement negates itself, for his cynicism more often seems to border on realism— which is, after all, a form of belief; but he will argue on it even if only for one sole reason that he thinks Aristotle a fool.

"All knowledge begins with the senses."

The statement is absurd. For the celebrated Greek, with all his wit and glory, has never stood on a dark corner of Rue St Denis beneath the cold and darkness of Paris' September rain in the eve of 1829, underneath the whorehouse and surrounded by scums of the people, trapped between thieves and children dying of hunger— and sees the sun.

There beneath the hoards of the lowest, stands one man— or rather, a god.

With his golden hair, voice as powerful as Zeus, face as handsome as Achilles, his clothes of finest silks and jacket as red as blood, he is the anomaly, the one speck of bright, blinding fire in between the circle of grim faces and dark clothes. But his striking differences do not drive away the flock, rather yet attract it, for every spectator, beholding his godlike features, cannot help themselves to be entranced by every words that he bestows.  

He speaks of foreign things; of hope, revolution and equality; of men given the rights to determine their own fate; of freedom.

Wishes of a dreamer conveyed into the ears of slaves.

But nobody tears him down. No insults uttered, no stones hurled, no mockery lashed.

Grantaire lives in the darkness. He is alive at nights and dead by the days. With demeanor of a bastard, appearance of a failure, education of a bourgeois, and wit of a Socrates, he chose instead to drown his life in wines and earthly pleasures; his cynicism his only will to pursue life. By the time he’s lost, he is too far of a failure to saves himself even with his own common sense. He does not trust love, he is a poet only to mock, and he states the faulty of mankind to be an absolute fact. He argues with everyone’s beliefs and negates even his own statements. He is the last person on earth to be seduced by the talks of any reasonable idealist.

But then Grantaire sees the light.

One he has long forgotten during his long and arduous years. That for a fraction of minutes, him and these lowest scums of Paris find themselves believing again, as if every words he uttered are their very own. 

Aristotle is wrong. 

Knowledge does not derive from the senses. For this light that his sight permits him, the fire that his hearing encounters, do nothing for the clarity of knowledge in his mind; instead it negates every single core of his principles, his carefully constructed arguments, his long life disbeliefs and sends his mind into utter chaos.

He sees a summer day in the middle of September and seeks his eyes to wonder what kind of magic he possesses in them that bewitch his souls. 

But Grantaire knows he is mistaken when he looks at his savior’s eyes— for they do not burn with fire as he expected.

It burns with a different kind of intensity; of hope, of kindness, of warmth, but most of all— of love.

For Patria. For France. 

He does not bare comparison towards even the most beautiful summer’s day in the Southern France; for he is so much more;

Apollo the purveyor, god of the sun. 

  
_Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,_  
_And summer's lease hath all too short a date:_

France was once an idea.

Land of fair kings and gold as bright as the sun; land of music as beautiful as the verses of Apollo; land of love and everything life has to offer. 

France is a delusion.

She has fooled all her children, led them one by one onto the hell of Hades. She has let hunger grows, ignored the cries of weeping mothers cradling the bodies of their sons; blessed the unjust and let the poor rot; hoarded the prostitutes and released the criminals. 

France's summer is cold. For her children it does not exist, even the brightest ray of sun does nothing to ease the chill of a rough wind, to procure a bread for those of the dying. 

Grantaire has seen too much of France. 

He could never turn his head again to the comfort of his inheritance, the glint of his father's gold, the naivety of his education. He is far too lost in the dark to climb back into the light. What he can do, is grapple towards it, to take what little he can to survive for another day. He is unsalvageable. 

His Achilles is unaware. 

For there could be no other reason for his permission. That everyday he drinks and mocks their ideals, argues and fights him with all his fervor, sits in their house and listens to even their deepest plans, and yet he was never sent away. That everyday his people disappoints him, abandons him in favor of their cowardice, mocks his comrades for their foolish souls and yet he fights for them. 

His Achilles is blind. He tries to save them but he does not know that his Patroclus is already dead; that his Patria gone.

 _Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,_  
_And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;_

France to Enjolras is Rousseau.

It is the first spark of idea that speaks of equality for all; the kind-hearted unending loyalty he finds in his comrades; the dreamland that Robespierre writes.  

Enjolras has seen too little of France. 

As Grantaire sees what there is, he sees what could be. 

The world is cruel.

Grantaire sees him as he stands for the crowd like the mighty Alexander; in the end betrayed by his own people that chose the comfort of reality rather than the promise of a dream. Sometimes his cerulean blue will shine too bright, only to be dimmed by the dark eyes that could not comprehend his passion, his wishes, his thoughts. 

Grantaire is cruel.

For knowing how it will end, still he walks himself everyday to their café, to watch their leader burns with hope, to feel the room lights up with passion, to be the skeptic of them all, to criticize his naivety and doom his foolish acts of revolution, to watch as those blue orbs regard him for a few seconds; as if confirming his existence, even if he has to watch them become clouded for a flicker, dimmed by disappointment. His selfishness he hates more than himself, for he yearns to be the centre of his god's world for a moment, to steal a little of his light for himself,

His Patria and his Patroclus; they were not worthy of him. 

But his heart could not comprehend. Hence, he loves. 

He, the skeptic who has never known the word. If he asks himself what love is, the answer shall be thus;

It is whatever you can still betray.

For he finds in his love that his arguments become exceptions, his corps becomes sacrifice even to the cause he believes not, and his heart betrays what his mind scorns him for. He did not know that he could love as passionately as if he still possesses passion in his soul, as intensely as Petrarch loves his Laura, as loyally as Hephaistion loves his Alexander, as madly as the taste of the wine that has long intoxicated his soul. And yet he loves with all his darkness, all the light still left that he could muster, with his whole breath, corps and being; and with each passing day he hates himself more and more. For all his hatred and self shame, his reasoning and common sense, he curses himself to never proclaims his feelings; to never be allowed of false hopes. For this much he could muster; he has closed his soul towards happiness. 

"You are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying." His Apollo has once said.

Yes. Beneath him is nothing but a shell of an empty casket. He is no longer human, for he has been consumed by the darkness himself, and become one with Hades. But he was dead except for one, defeated except for one, lost except for one— for he has found his light, his sun, his Persephone; and for him he will give the world, he will will himself to believe in anything, for him he will live and die on his honor.

And so he speaks;

"You will see,"

  
_And every fair from fair sometime declines,_  
_By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;_  
_But thy eternal summer shall not fade_  
_Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;_

Grantaire is not a fool of poetry and sweet words. He reads them to mock about them later on; he takes their words and shames them as he uses them for his speeches on the eternal vices of mankind. 

He is never a romantic. He muses not through the tender voice of a loved one as he sees them only as a moment's pleasure. He comprehends not a poet's obsession with his mistress' eyes for he has found better companion in his wines. 

His life purposeless, he knows no love and has no need for it. 

Until he was saved.

For the first time he devours himself in poetry not to mock but to worship. For his savior has eyes as blue as the Indian Ocean, with locks as golden as Zeus' wreath, face as noble as Michelangelo's marble.

He tells his muse about them everyday, only to be scorned not to mock him.

Just as Apollo, his personification embodies immortal beauty. For a soul that burns enough for the whole nation, heart even warmer than Prometheus' fire, mind as sharp as Athena and spirit that only comes once in a million years; will never be rotten away with time. 

Grantaire could not imagine him dead, or carried away by old age.

His soul, in the eyes of those blessed enough to have encountered him, will forever be young. 

 _Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,_  
_When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;_

Red.

Red everywhere. Red of the flags, red on the streets, red the colour of his spilled bottle of wine, red the empty stares of his friends' eyes, red the uniform of the national guards, red the tinge of the cockades on the cold chest of his comrades. 

Red the colour of Apollo's jacket at the corner of the room.

The guards line up, circling their last standing hero like beasts, and yet he sees respect in their eyes, and perhaps a little fear. 

"Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged?"

Grantaire laughs.

What fools.

_So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,  
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. _

His Apollo is no longer a god. For all their claim of immortality, in time seasons changed, people died, as temples abandoned and offerings ceased and gods died too.

But his light has no need to fear for the death.

He has defeated them, and shall now rejoin the sun as eternal.

 

* * *

_My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;_

If Enjolras was to be born a few years earlier, he would be on the forefront of the French Revolution.

He would march alongside Robespierre as they seized the Bastille on 14 Juillet; he would argue upon Rousseau's origin of inequality with Danton; and he would be the first on their feet to cry "Vive la France!" as Mirabeau, on the eve of the dissolution of the Assembly, looked upon his enemies, and said—"Allez dire à ceux qui vous envoient que nous sommes ici par la volonté nationale et que nous n'en sortirons que par la puissance des baïonnettes."— with such fervor that they trembled on their feet.

Had he been born earlier he would've died an honorable death, with the victory of la Republique on their hands, on the battlefields of the martyrs of France. He would've been written down in history books of centuries to come as their most honorable general, their bravest, their guiding light.

Had he been born earlier he would've been more of an optimist rather than an idealist. He would have more time to dally with life, attend more operas, sing more songs, drink more wine. He would have an equal chance of being transfixed with Racine's poems as he is with Rousseau's notions. He would've wrote more on love, on life, on great literature than just on political debates.

But Enjolras believes in many things. One that he is there for a purpose. 

And his lateness makes his soul burns a little brighter than the rest of them, makes his determination a little more stubborn, allows him to scorn on Jehan's romanticism and his love of poetry, or on Bahorel and Bossuet's foolishness, permits him to suffer a little bit more on the thought of leading his comrades to Revolution with stakes on their heads.

But his purpose, he only just discovers on the eve of September in the corner of Rue St Denis. 

As he speaks to the dead, to the cold dark night and battles his voice against the harsh wind. He always looks them in the eyes, one by one; the prostitutes, the labourers, the thieves, the homeless— to tell them that he is one of them, that he will fight with them, not above them. And there, in the far end corner of the crowd, half shielded by the dark alleys, he finds his eyes, and with it; his purpose.

For his dark orbs are the eyes of France. They are of a broken soul, of a hope long forgotten, of sufferings too long witnessed, of tears too much hidden. They reflect the eyes of the mothers of his Patria, crying for the fate of their children. They shine with a devious glint of a prostitute, but darken with the desperation for their lives. They plea with the eyes of the beggars, but mock with those of the scums.

But beneath it all, there are flickers of kindness; of what once were good humour and sharp wit; a casket of once gentleman.

Of the same love for his Patria. 

And so it be that he has come to save him, to save them, to save his France. Not to liberate them, but to teach them to liberate themselves, not to procure false hopes but to allow them to hope again. The Jacobins have Robespierre but let him be this France’s Enjolras.  

The eyes of his purpose are not sky blue like his, nor are they green as the meadows of France, or amber as they reflect the rays of the sun. 

They are dark. 

But Enjolras looks at them and sees the world.

  
_Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;_  
_If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;_  
_If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head._

They were a juxtaposition. Nature’s little mockery when he decides to have a little fun.

Their friends know this, basking in amusement of how two people can contradict each other so much. For their difference is not only in the minds and speech, but also in physical appearance. When they walk side by side in the streets the people can’t help but regard with curiosity. One of them tells him it is like seeing Zeus and Hades in stride. And during all these, the cynic takes it all on his might to ensure the rightness of the statement. Enjolras has never met another man who mocks his own physique so, meanwhile worships his as a deity.

Here’s what the people say about their comparisons;

As each day from his lips he utters speeches of the red colour of courage and hope, his counterpart’s only knows red after 3 bottles of wine.

As his skin white and markless as the proof of his fine upbringing, his counterpart’s is brownish and unremarkable, full of scars of street brawls and fights, fingers etched with artist’s marks.

As his locks the most golden of colour like woven silks and threads from the sun impossible to not be viewed as attribute of gods, his counterpart’s are dark, unruly and messy— so much that the only comparison made is to wires.

But Enjolras is not vain nor is he vicious. He could see their physical differences but heeds no difference, for what matters to him are appearances of the soul. And for all Grantaire’s claim that his being is soulless, he has seen far too much to agree.

For while with his pale deadened lips he has mocked their causes and torn them inch by inch for what he claims to be their foolishness,

he has also witnessed the same lips uttering words so kind and gentle to a stranger woman on one of their meetings who has just found out that her husband was taken by the cholera;

or for Madame Houcheloup—who claims that their revolution will be the death of her business; a poetry, professing his undying promise to always spend more than 2 bottles of wine every night in the Musain until the day he dies or rots in poverty;

or how it curls so wide into a smile when Joly hugged him as he received a perfect score on his last medical exams.

For while with his knuckles bruised, his skin scarred, his hands dirty, his boots hideous and his complexion horrid he has watched him drown himself in meaningless bar fights, lifted wine cups as he associates himself with the scum drunkards of the century,

he has also watched the same hand dances on top of the paper, pouring life into his drawings, procuring magic with his paintings— the most beautiful Enjolras has ever seen despite having witnessed the first reveal of Delacroix’s works;

he has witnessed how his boots became unsalvageable, his shirts unpresentable, and his complexion the most unremarkable as he walks all day around Paris to search for scarce medicine for a poor midwife’s son that has been strucked down by an illness;

and how, during one of their public attempts of recruitment that turned violent, with his bruised knuckles and face already scarred with blood he has stepped up next to him, to take a blow that was intended for his face, pushing him away from the fight.

Or even when his hairs are always a dark wire of mess, unkempt and his demeanors unpampered,

he still tosses half his lunch money everyday to a blind man on the corner of Rue de Verrier;

and that he buys Gravoche a new hat— so as to keep his head from the rain when he runs the streets at night.

Those are the reasons why he never sends him away, that he permits him to be present even in their most secretive meetings— even if he does absolutely nothing and scorns absolutely everything. And that’s also why he never gives up on his France, his Patria; for they are very much alike.

His Patria is not gone. Though she spits at him in the light, she is the one who still nurtures him in the dark.

His Patroclus is not what he seems. Though he looks as a dead man, there is as much soul to him as 10 of the liberalists combined.

And so be it that to him, they both are more valuable than all the golds of the king combined.

 _I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,_  
_But no such roses see I in her cheeks;_  
_And in some perfumes is there more delight_  
_Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks._

Enjolras is a fool.

He is but two and twenty.

Yet he can charm a thousand masses to march with him on the dawn of the revolution, coax the criminals to turn on their stealings, make even the busiest people of Paris stop and gawk at his speeches. 

He possesses the power to make 10 royal guards weak on their knees by the sound of his shout, to make even the bravest of men doubt themselves in the soaring gaze of his eyes, to make an argument so sound even Descartes will have to agree, to inspire loyalty even by the price of their blood.

He is already two and twenty.

But he does not know how to whisper softly into the ears of a loved one, how to read poetry with as much fervor as his political speeches, how to calm a weeping child who lost his mother.

He has never laugh in freedom just for the sake of boyhood camaraderie, never drink just to remember the taste of the wine, never kiss a lips and feel its warmth.

But most of all, he knows not how to talk to his cynic.

He is a man of reason and purpose. He despises alcohol and drunkards. He is also a man of just character— so that no man; be it his family, his friends, his brothers, a complete stranger or even a king, should ever be pardoned to be judged by its action.

And Grantaire is the lousiest drunk of all Paris. 

His intoxication transfixes him; a man who is drowning and drowning but makes no action to reach for the surface. He has watched him for years, how his features change as the night gets darker and the wine gets emptier. 

In the mercy of alcohol, his face does not flush of good humour and wine which ignites good camaraderie like Bahorel, his eyes do not light up of foolishness and robust spirit like Jehan; yet his complexion— be it possible, only seems to pale even more than his usual, his cheeks resemble those of the dead, his eyes fallen deeper into the abyss. 

His breath reeks of the scums, reprimanding everyone who starts to think him a well educated man as he speaks his sound argument even in the midst of his drunkenness. 

Enjolras should despise him for his vice, belittle him and degrade him in his eyes as he has done so many times to all others;

Instead he worries.

He worries that one day the reasonable man will lose its battle against the unreasonable wine, he worries that he will one day drink no longer to forget but because he has no other choice to save his life, he worries that one day his dark eyes will turn to the red of the sick, he worries that someday he will fall asleep as he is dead drunk and never wake again. 

He flinches when he watches him tumbles down his steps the morning after, he is tortured when he hears him coughs one too many after his third bottle, he feels helpless when one night he saw Joly rested his hand on his shoulder and said “My friend, you have to stop.”

Enjolras is a fool. He knows not how to speak of his worries, to plead him in his helplessness, to express his fears. He has no courage to cradle his face and begs him to stop, to beseech him gentle words to make it through the night. So instead he scorns, he mocks, in hope to cease the wine away as he watches the pain flickers again and again on his Pylades’ eyes.

 _I love to hear her speak, yet well I know_  
_That music hath a far more pleasing sound;_

He is two and twenty and still blind. 

He knows nothing of matters of the heart. In his life he has only loved one mistress— his Patria. The others call him a god for he has never fallen like mortal men and their lovers. 

He pays them no mind for he has discovered— he is but a man.

Gods should be able to reason with their hearts, to stop it from bleeding as he looked at the eyes of his best friends and realized; that Combeferre will never have the chance to be a well-respected academician, to write all his musings on philosophy that he so often preached upon his friends; that Jehan and his soul will be too tainted, they will no longer hear his songs and the melody of his flute even on the darkest nights at the Musain; that Bahorel will never be a fine lawyer, finally able to give his parents a decent life; that young and ever kind Joly will never live to see his day as a doctor; that he will never witness the little Gavroche grows into a fine young man. Gods should have the ability to stop his heart from encouraging his senses to always look for the dark haired man even in the most crowded room, to not hinder his mind with anything other than their honorable revolution of freedom.

Gods are brave. Yet on some days— he looks at his dark eyes and he doesn't let himself possess the bravery to dream about the life beyond the revolution, of what might be.

Gods should be immune to love.

He is no god.

For what other explanation is there? As he has lived with the speeches of Mirabeau stored word by word in the back of his mind, yet only now does he understand what he means when he said—"Love has the power of making you believe what you would normally treat with the deepest suspicion."

That everyday as the night dawns at the Musain he hears him speak, hears his ideals challenged, his arguments countered; yet he would choose it so than to never hear him talk. That his voice is rasp and always clouded with wine but he finds himself longing as if there is no sound more pleasing, even if the only conversation they've ever had are through heated debates on opposite corners of the room. 

He, the idealist who has never known the word. If he asked himself what love is, the answer shall be thus;

It is whatever you can still defend.

For the world has asked too much of Enjolras. She gave him no real family, and yet when he managed to create his own, she insists on taking it from him. The world has imprisoned him from freedom, yet when he asked for it she demands his life with it. Enjolras was born rich, but he grew up owning nothing. He no longer has any need for the light, for he will be its own bearer. But only in a soul as dark as Grantaire's did he find one that gives everything and demands nothing; that claims to criticize everything yet means nothing; that loves greatly but reveals none; that possesses the gentlest kindness yet acts like a brute; that is his nemesis in ideals but his equals in wit; that is his exact opposite but his guiding purpose. And so be it that when he falls, he only knows love with everything he can still defend; that he loves his Hephaistion with all his freedom, with all the passion he possesses for his Patria, that he loves him as pure as his spirit would allow, as eternal as the soul that burns for his people. He loves him through all his vices, and grieves for his soul as Achilles grieves for Patroclus, he loves all his imperfections and his crookedness, and when the man despises himself for his bearings he loves him even more. 

His selflessness the one that prevents him from embracing his feelings; his life and his love mean too little to France; that he has taken far too much from the man, wounded him in return and deserves nothing back. 

Only once does he allow himself to be selfish. It's the night of the revolution, everyone stands by their posts at the barricade; but Grantaire stays loyal to his stool at the Musain, drunk as usual, waxing poetry at poor Matelote, reprimanded by Courfeyrac. Upon hearing his voice Enjolras feels his heart stops dead. Preoccupied by unending tasks at the forefront, he thought the cynic had gone earlier in the day— leaving the barricade and their revolution for good. 

"Grantaire," he shouted, "go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. Don't disgrace the barricade!" And thus he sends him away for the first time; a flicker of torn anguish flashes in the dark eyes, rendering him sober— and Enjolras feels his heart dies.

Enjolras has never prayed. He is not a believer; has nothing to fear for, nothing to pray for. But at that moment terror so great strikes him for the first time in his life and his heart trembles in panic as he begs to God to take his Patroclus away from here; before Hector's spear of death pierces them all in their impending doom.

"Let me sleep here."

Dear Lord, have mercy. Let him listen for once in his life.

"Go and sleep somewhere else,"

"Let me sleep here,—until I die."

Is mother earth this cruel? For Enjolras knows the reason he is here, there could only be one— the cynic who does not believe in anything but in him; who will sacrifice his life for him even under the name of ideals he does not stand for. 

"Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying."—you are a soul far detached from the mortality of this world, far too beautiful to be sacrificed, far too valuable to be taken victim.

Enjolras prayed to the angels, to Zeus, to France, to anyone that will listen. He is never selfish, never takes anything for granted, never asks for what he could not have, never wishes for happiness in life, never expects to outlive his revolution; but just this once, he begs, he writhes, he cries, he kneels to the ground; let him not be another Achilles, let him not bear the burden of another Alexander:

Do not let his love die before his eyes.

"You will see."

Perhaps it is the greater grief after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.

  
_I grant I never saw a goddess go;_  
_My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:_

It is the end.

He has seen enough blood, enough suffering.

It is finally his time; to join his brothers and sisters.

The people has not risen; but he refuses to die in regret.

It is better to die for a cause than to live for nothing. Better to leave a free man than to stay in tyranny. 

"Long live the Republic! I'm one of them."

A shout.

The gods did hear him after all. 

There are footsteps from the back of the room; the one he will never fail to recognize. 

He has heard how Zeus storms as he ascends to the sky, how Poseidon marches gloriously upon the tumults of his oceans, how Hades’ chariot echoes through all corners of the earth.

But none is more divine to him than this— the soft thuds of boots too long worn pass its time; one a slight heavier than the other as its owner, in his inebriate state of drunkenness, always limps to the right. 

“Long live the Republic!” He repeats as he stands beside his Apollo one last time. 

There was a wise man who once said,

You’ll never thought you had a heart, until you have to watch him die.

“Finish both of us at one blow,”

 

He was wrong.

 

“Do you permit it?”

 

You’ll never thought you had a heart, until you look him in the eyes and realises that you do not love alone, and now has to die by his side. 

 

Ah, in the end what have they to regret?

They were children of the barricades, with yet 30 years before them. They’ve fought with their hearts, lived with their best. They were the best of the mongrels, the worst of the kinds. They have loved, denied loved, fallen in love, and for these last few seconds,—be in love. 

No souls as brave as them, none more beautiful, no men as free as them, none the wiser. 

Had fate been kinder they would’ve lived in a different time; where men are more just, people more courageous, life more worth living.

Had life been kinder they would’ve had more time, more words uttered, more happiness shared, more years to spend growing old together. 

France, old gentle France on the windows behind them as they pressed their hands together with a smile.

In the light, she will once again rise and one day her children will live forever in freedom. 

Enough now.

Patria you are calling me.

 

Now I am coming home.

 

  
_And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare_  
_As any she belied with false compare._

For they were many names through the ages; Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Alexander and Hephaistion, one always leaving the other first towards the peril of mortality. But perhaps most of all they were this: Apollo and Hyacinth— the god and the mortal, the most tragic of them all, whose love for each other knows no boundaries.

And when their love finally meets, the envious winds of death comes between them. The mortal died professing his love to the Lord of The Sun, struck down by the discus he was trying to catch to impress the god. But by his death Apollo begged Hades not to take his soul, and by his blood turned him into the flower of youth, the Hyacinth. As his tears stained the flower’s petals they have defeated the darkness, cleansed the night and sprung them to be equals, that god and man no longer bears significance.

That tears and suffering will be banished as they climb into the light,

That the darkest nights have ended and the sun has risen,

That hope was bestowed again and warmth of the summer day is forever,

And by the end of it all,

Love eternal and everlasting. 

**Author's Note:**

> Shakespeare was already a regarded writer and playwright way before the boys and their June rebellion. The sonnets were published on 1609. It consisted of 154 sonnets, in which the first 126 was addressed to which was called "The Fair Youth", a young hero that Shakespeare portrays almost as a god-like figure. The sonnets to the young man express overwhelming, obsessional love. Meanwhile the last 28 was addressed to which was referred to as "The Dark Lady", which borders on poems that are more cynical, more straightforward and mature (sonnet 130 perfectly captures this). The resemblances are so striking I could not possibly pass up the opportunity to make the links. Enjolras is, in terms of their views and relationship, as much "The Fair Youth" to Grantaire as he is "The Dark Lady" to the leader. Here I am, imagining that Grantaire or Enjolras could've stumbled, in all their frenchness aside, on Shakespeare's masterpieces. And it has become too much of an idea that I have to put it into words, really. I do oblige you to delve further into the meaning and analysis per line of each of these sonnets (if it interests you) and I promise you will find a better understanding of why I chose these two specifically. Sonnet 18 is meant to be an ode to his muse, that he shall not worry for his youth has surpassed the mortality of death. Sonnet 130 however, is Shakespeare’s one of a kind: it is a mockery of other poems. He made fun of the way the poets describe their loved ones (eyes are like the sun, lips as red as corals), claiming his lover to be mortal and unhandsome, but even then he loves her all the same.  
> Lastly, If you paid attention you will see that I used the same comparisons and style of writing for each part of their narratives, making it seems like two different views upon one same events, and for that I used events and conversations right off Hugo's— and you will find them as they are in the book.
> 
> Do forgive me for this selfish endeavors. I am not a native to English, and surely no expert on Shakespeare. If I, in any way, offend you true Shakespeareans or make any grammatical errors, I am very very sorry!  
> Nevertheless, I would very much like to hear all of your thoughts! So please do comment and leave kudos, it will make me very very happy! thank you!


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